Customer Reviews

Tinker Belles and Evil Queens: The Walt Disney Company from the Inside Out

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I'm a fairly big Disney fan, and also a big fan of subculture studies and media studies. So, this book is right up my alley. I am not gay, however. This book is filled with insight that helps to reinterpret Disney films from the silent era to the present day with a 'queer sensibility'.

The familiarity the author has with the many decades of Disney material (primarily animated shorts and feature films but also the animated films and TV shows) is impressive. What's great is thanks to Disney's releasing of the Treasures collection, the average reader can follow along to just about everything mentioned in the book.

Overall, a great read.

Versed in the theories of Foucault and post-colonialist writers, Griffin does a wonderful job of letting the Disney story speak for itself even when it doesn't quite match what theoreticians might expect. Nevertheless, as Disney surreptitiously reaches out to the gay market, Griffin makes clear that it is with an eye to profit from the segment without disowning it cherished 'family' brand image. I compare the attitude to those who organize Gay Pride Parades--the business sponsors often feel politics distracts from the Spectacle meant to promote their wares!

This was not what I expected. A great deal of the book is wild conjecture. I erroneously thought if you mix gay and disney you'd have a fast paced thriller. This was not the case at all. I'm not even sure what this book is, (it reads like a very dull doctoral thesis) but I don't think that Micky is gay. I do think Walt was a misogynist and that is evident in all the evil women in his films. I do not think the women were meant to be drag queens as was speculated. Evil men are portrayed as feminine and evil women as masculine, not too big of a mystery.